Doing Life Together

Why the Pope, Not Miley Was a Surprising Choice for Man of the Year

Thankfully, Time Magazine chose Pope Francis as their Man of the Year, not Miley Cyrus! When I heard the announcement, it gave me a moment of hope. He is deserving of that award. But in one way, he was a surprising choice.

Headlines are made by the sensationalists. And even though I’m growing weary of the obscenity passed off as entertainment, it pulses through our culture like a life force. Yet, it is the same old obvious ploy–be as obscene and sexual as possible. Madonna, who is more my age, is spewing out trash talk like she is 18. Why? According to the Pet Shop Boys, “She’s got to be obscene to be believed.”

And then there is the king offender of sensibilities, Kanye West, whose mix of obscenity and narcissism, just makes me want to diagnosis and treat him. And Jay Z, who is regularly seen with our President, seems limited in his command of the English language. His lyrics are basically trash talk. It all lacks creativity and the beauty of the arts.

We no longer need cable or the Internet to awaken our animal instincts–prime time will give it to us. The singing glee type people were doing Nelly’s, “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes” song on a family show last night!

It’s all become so casual. I even saw a blog recently suggesting Jesus would use the F word if he were living in today’s world. Really, I don’t think so. Why is it that when people get saved, THEY report that God cleans up their language and their thoughts? And why would Jesus use a word that degrades sexuality and women?

What’s happening here is a desensitization to obscenity and sex. It’s the proverbial frog simmering in the boiling water.

Catering to our lowest impulses does not make America great. And it saddens me that we import obscenity and animal sexuality to the world through our entertainment. But as long as we continue to buy this stuff, our entertainers will keep doing it. Bottom line, if we decide we don’t want this stuff and it stops selling, we might see less.

And occasionally, we’ll have a moment when someone brings in civility and chooses the Pope over a rebellious girl trying to shock her way to the top! It used to be the other way around, we would have moments of vulgarity sprinkled in to the civility. Now, we get excited when civility wins the day. But thankfully, civility won the day on the cover of Time.

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